


white as diamonds

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Community: criticalkink, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-02-19 13:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: For the prompt: After the war of taking down Vecna, there will be many things to do in the aftermath. But eventually, after seemingly endless and exhaustive hours, Scanlan and Pike share a moment alone.





	white as diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://criticalkink.dreamwidth.org/700.html?thread=405692#cmt405692). Spoilers for episode 115. Goes non-canon after the tavern.
> 
> Not mine, just borrowing.
> 
> * * *

Scanlan wishes he were sober just so that he could get drunk again.  
  
Grog’s gone off to Whitestone’s one reopened house of lady favors to keep drowning his sorrows in the one thing at present more intoxicating than ale. (Even he agrees that enough blood has been spilled.) Scanlan imagines Vex and Percy are probably together; maybe Keyleth’s with them, maybe not.  
  
This—fuck. Comfort should be a group thing tonight. They should’ve sent word out, brought everyone to the tavern, and stayed together until dawn.  
  
Maybe with enough people present, they could have forgotten about the one who wasn’t.  
  
Instead Scanlan’s lying on the bed in his quarters at Whitestone Castle, pillow damp but eyes dry now, thinking about getting up and shuttering the oil lantern so it’s not so fucking bright. In all honesty, it’s dim enough that he can barely see the foot of the bed, but his hangover’s getting an early start.  
  
He’s on the verge of sleep—which is a charitable way of saying “about to pass out”—when there’s a timid tap at the door. For a second he considers not answering it. But then Pike calls softly, “Scanlan?” and he’s on his feet before he knows it.  
  
Belatedly he realizes he’s only wearing knee-length cotton breeches, what passes for sleepwear. That’s all right, though; when he opens the door to Pike, she’s garbed in a nightgown so big on her that it can only be Vex’s—or, more likely considering where they are, Cassandra’s.  
  
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she says, marching past him and clambering up onto the bed. (Grog sleeps on two pushed together; they haven’t yet made provisions for the smaller party members, but the extra room suits Scanlan fine.)  
  
“...all right?” Scanlan follows her, lying down an arm’s length away from her.  
  
“Do you have a headache?”  
  
“Yes,” Scanlan says, not nodding, because he does in fact have a rather nasty headache.  
  
Pike casts Greater Restoration on him and the headache fades. He feels noticeably more awake and alert as well, and if he didn’t have her here he’d make a start on getting drunk again.  
  
But she’s here, wriggling with annoyed discomfort against the quilt for some reason.  
  
At last she plucks at her nightgown, bunching it up, and pulls it fluidly off over her head. “Can’t  _stand_  sleeping in this garbage,” she mumbles, folding it and leaning forward to deposit it at the end of the bed. Scanlan only catches her words because he’s staring at her, speechless.  
  
He’s seen her naked before, of course. Even if she hadn’t memorably done her streak-battling in this very castle, Vox Machina are  _tight_ ; travelling in the wilderness means knowing how long Grog takes for his morning shit, let alone catching glimpses of the others bathing. But he hasn’t seen her like this, by low lantern light, her hair so white against the darkness, her skin still (to his wondering eyes) shimmering with Sarenrae’s blessing.  
  
“Pike—”  
  
She cuts him off with a kiss.  
  
And they’ve kissed before, of course, hands and cheeks and even lip pecks, each one stored up in his memory. He’s well aware of how often he’s fucked up with Pike.  _Well_  aware. Too much, too soon, too sleazy, too obvious.  
  
Her radiance burns all that away from him. Like a diamond she refracts and splinters all those moments away, until he is a blank slate, granted absolution. Her little hands draw his breeches off and Scanlan understands that this isn’t about giving him what he’s been seeking for so long.  
  
But it’s also not quite  _solely_  about Pike not wanting to be alone tonight.  
  
With long kisses, soft touches that become greedy grasping, whimpers and gasps, Pike rewrites their story on his body with her desire.   
  
When she finally sinks down on him, fitting him inside her with a low, satisfied moan at their joining, Scanlan literally sees God. For just a second Pike’s eyes blaze with a perfect golden glow, and for that same second Scanlan feels the third eye on his forehead open, a purple glow looking right back at her.  
  
Then Pike begins moving, and it’s just the two of them in the lantern light.  
  
It lasts a long time. Pike peaks more than once; Scanlan’s hands work on her, helping her to coast along on that crest before falling into sensation. The third time he tries to tease her along she bats his hands away and rolls them so he’s atop her, her ankles locking behind his knees. Even now Scanlan’s mindful of what she wants, what she  _needs_ , until she glares fiercely up at him and says, “Scanlan, let go, please.”  
  
She’s not referring to physically disengaging from how he’s hanging onto her like he’s a hundred feet in the air and she’s an immovable rod, either.  
  
Scanlan drops his forehead to the juncture of Pike’s neck and shoulder, inhales the smell of soap (and under that the smell of war), and feels the tears begin to fall once more as he comes. Pike doesn’t laugh, doesn’t say anything, just holds him close, fingers digging into the skin of his back.  
  
Eventually he slips out of her and Pike pushes him off, rolls to her side, and pulls him against her, arranging him to her liking. She’s the little spoon, but Scanlan nonetheless feels as though she’s the one embracing him.  
  
The night is cold, so cold, in Whitestone it seems to _always_ be cold, but with the Everlight’s blessed one in his bed, Scanlan knows he’ll never be cold again.


End file.
